Cowboys must watch as others decide their playoff fate

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An image of two Dallas Cowboys football players in navy blue and white uniforms during a game, with one player gesturing towards the other as they celebrate a play.

The 16th week of the 2025 NFL season kicks off tonight in Seattle. The Dallas Cowboys will be watching closely on Saturday to see if they remain alive for a playoff spot.

For the Cowboys, Saturday’s Eagles-Commanders showdown is the one they will be glued to their television screens watching.

Dallas has to hope for an upset as Philadelphia is favored by 6.5 points over a Washington team missing its starting quarterback, Jayden Daniels.

To remain alive for the NFC East title, the only path remaining to the postseason for the Cowboys, Marcus Mariota must lead the Commanders to a win. That can’t be a good feeling down at The Star.

AT&T Stadium: The Ultimate Game Day Experience for Cowboys Fans

In all probability, by the time Dallas takes the field at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, their fate may already be sealed.

Perfect Scheduling

In addition to the Eagles clinching the NFC East on Saturday, the other three NFC divisions will see head-to-head matchups between teams either in first or second place in their respective divisions.

In fact, each of the winners of those three games will walk off the field in first place in their division. No matter who wins the games.

The man in charge of scheduling the season at the NFL deserves a raise. He couldn’t have done a better job of it in the NFC.

Tonight’s game between the Rams at the Seahawks features two teams deadlocked at 11-3.

The Rams won the first meeting in Los Angeles, giving the tie-breaker.

A Rams’ win and the Seahawks would need to win out. They’d also need to have the Rams lose both of their remaining games to take the NFC West.

A Seattle win puts them in the driver’s seat.

But should they end the year tied after splitting the season series, then you start tumbling down the list of tie-breakers to figure out who wins the division.

Busy Saturday Slate

After a possible Eagles clinching of the NFC East, the 9-4-1 Packers head to Chicago to face the 10–4 Bears.

Green Bay will be without Micah Parsons. But they might have Christian Watson back for the Saturday night contest.

The Packers won the first meeting.

Chicago will face San Francisco and Detroit to close out the year.

Green Bay has a home game against the Ravens. They close out the year on the road in Minnesota against the Vikings.

There might be a little more pressure on the Bears to win this game and take control of the NFC North.

The .500 Bowl

Then there’s the NFC South. The 7–7 Tampa Bay Bucs head north to Carolina to play the 7–7 Panthers.

Carolina is tough at home.

Tampa Bay has lost six of its last eight games.

The two teams will meet again two weeks later in Tampa. One hopes they have generated enough tie-breakers to sort this mess out should both teams finish 9-8, or worse.

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Richard Paolinelli is an award-winning sports journalist with 34 years of professional newsroom experience. His newspaper career (1991–2011) includes the Gallup Independent, Modesto Bee, Gustine Press-Standard, Turlock Journal, Merced Sun-Star, Tracy Press, Patch, and San Francisco Examiner. He received the 2001 California Newspaper Publishers Association Best Sports Story award. Richard has authored two non-fiction sports books and 11 novels. At InsideTheStar.com, he has published 874 articles reaching over 728,000 readers.

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Cowboys fan
Cowboys fan
Dec 20, 2025 8:42 AM

Having Marcus Mariota lead Washington to a win over the eagles isn’t that hard of a thought!! Mariota hasn’t been too bad while playing for Washington!! He’s had better games this season than Daniels has!! And he’s pretty much the same kind of QB as Daniels anyways, so they’ll be calling the same plays as they would if Daniels was playing, and Mariota has proven he can handle it!! And with the eagles falling apart lately, and really not being that good all season as it is, Washington beating the eagles is a good possibility!! Especially since they’ll be playing in Washington, so they’ll have home field advantage too!! They could be in Philly, I can’t remember for sure since they play twice so close together, but it don’t matter either way since Philly hasn’t taken advantage of home field advantage very much this year, so Washington could win both games, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if they did!! My whole point is, don’t crown Philly as the NFC East champs just yet!! I wouldn’t do that until they’ve finally got it done!!

Edward Carmichael
Edward Carmichael
Jan 27, 2026 9:15 AM

a Dallas Cowboy fan, since the 70’s I told everybody that the Cowboys will be home watching the playoffs